The BEST episodes directed by Leon Benson
#1 - The Merchant
Mission: Impossible - Season 5 - Episode 23
Armand Anderssarian is an illegal arms dealer who is about to complete a multi-million dollar deal selling arms to guerrilla groups around the world - the IMF must stop him. Jim pretends to be setting up a theft of a secret radar system and Anderssarian "sponsors" Jim with $5 million through Minister Sartori then plans to sell the system for $20 million. Meanwhile Anderssarian loses his $5 million to Paris (with Barney providing an assist) in a poker game. The IMF team perform a fake raid (under the scrutiny of Anderssarian's aide Leon) on a IMF-staged radar station but the stuff is useless and Sartori wants to be reimbursed. When Anderssarian can't do so Sartori takes care of him for good.
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#2 - A Hanging Offense
The High Chaparral - Season 1 - Episode 11
Billy Blue Cannon faces possible hanging when he is court-martialed on the charge of killing an army general's son. Billy Blue saves an Indian girl from advances by a drunken army lieutenant, who is killed in the fight. When the girl flees to the Apache stronghold, Buck and Manolito risk their lives to persuade Cochise to release Blue's only eyewitness. Her testimony is discarded when the court learns her release was obtained by a bribe. It becomes obvious to John Cannon that the court-appointed defense is incapable of saving Billy Blue, and John personally takes over his son's defense
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#3 - Show Me a Hero
The Virginian - Season 4 - Episode 9
In Denver, Midge Conway (Lee Patterson) visits Paul Leland (Ken Lynch), head of Leland Enterprises. Leland sends him to Eagle Rock, Wyoming. He wants that town just as he has taken others in the past and tells Midge he will have to muscle in on local Frank Colter. Trampas meanwhile is riding back to Medicine Bow when he comes upon a runaway freight wagon which he manages to stop but injures his horse in the process. The wagon driver reveals himself to be Frank Colter (John Beymer) who tells Trampas to come with him to Eagle Rock where they can get the horse treated. Trampas is surprised because Eagle Rock had long been a ghost town. At Eagle Rock the blacksmith, Bert Devlin (Mort Mills) deduces the horse has a strained tendon but with treatment it can be healed in four or five days. Attorney Keith Bentley (Leonard Nimoy) arrives and he and Frank discuss the small amount of supplies Colter has brought back. The townspeople can not get more credit and some people are leaving. Trampas ask
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#4 - Ghost of Chaparral
The High Chaparral - Season 1 - Episode 3
Victoria is over shadowed by the memory of Annalee. The rigid Big John refuses to let her make changes as he still feels their marriage is an arrangement with her father. A confrontation with Apaches and Victoria's old beau force a change.
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#8 - Farewell to Honesty
The Virginian - Season 3 - Episode 27
A deputized Virginian arrives in the very misnamed Honesty, Wyoming looking for Major Ralph Forrester (Richard Carlson) who had defrauded Judge Garth. However, the local judge is in the Major's pocket and, using the excuse that the Virginian is not a full-time deputy, refuses to let the man be taken back to Medicine Bow. While waiting for Deputy Ryker to arrive, the Major is murdered and the Virginian is accused of the crime. Ryker arrives and with help of a local lawyer, John Harrison (Harold Gould), tries to sort out who the murderer is from amongst a number of suspects including the murdered man's wife (Dorothy Green), a former acquaintance of the Virginian who runs the local saloon and was being blackmailed by the dead man (Kathleen Crowley), and the Major's business partner(Douglas Henderson).
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#9 - I, Robot
The Outer Limits - Season 2 - Episode 9
A grotesque, but gentle, robot is put on trial for the murder of his creator.
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#10 - Men with Guns
The Virginian - Season 4 - Episode 17
The Sheriff of New Hope (Douglas Kennedy) and his men evict Ernie and Pearl Packer (Andy Albin and Colleen Gray) from their home saying Colonel Bliss (Telly Savalas) will pay for the moving wagon. As the townspeople watch, Ernie asks if the Colonel is paying the Sheriff too, draws a gun in resistance, and is shot dead. The wagon leaves town with Pearl, Ernie's body and their things, accompanied by local woman Gina Larsen (Brenda Scott) who will take Pearl to relatives in the next town. Outside town, Trampas and Randy Benton come across the dejected Pearl sitting in the wagon and nearby they find Gina burying Ernie. Pearl drives off and the two cowboys give Gina a lift back to town. They tell her they are there to pick up some Arabian horses from Colonel Bliss for Judge Garth. In town Colonel Bliss and his son Lem (Buck Taylor) visit the restaurant and wine bar owned by Gina's father Eric (Robert F. Simon). The Colonel tells him that he and all the townsfolk are squatters on his land a
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#11 - Desperate Passage
Bonanza - Season 9 - Episode 8
Driving horses to Utah, the Cartwrights and Candy discover only two people left in a town wiped out by rampaging Paiute Indians. Together, Mary Burns and Josh Tanner must travel through hostile territory, along with the Cartwrights and Candy.
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#12 - Emily
Bonanza - Season 10 - Episode 25
Joe is shocked to see his ex-fiancee, Emily Anderson, in Virginia City. He had met her in Monterey five years earlier, and they had planned to get married. But her strict father thought Joe was too wild, and he burned all of Joe's letters before Emily saw them. Emily and Joe are still in love with each other, but Emily conveniently forgets to tell Joe that she is now Emily McPhail, the wife of Deputy Marshal Wade McPhail. Wade is on assignment with Marshal Calhoun to help guard a $90,000 currency shipment. Emily tells Wade they have to leave Virginia City immediately, since Joe's presence might interfere with their marriage, but he refuses to leave. He finds Joe and Emily embracing and engages with Joe in a savage fight, almost killing him at gunpoint. That is the first Joe hears of Emily's marriage. That is by no means the end of her lies, which eventually get Joe shot and nearly framed for murder.
#13 - The Stronghold
Bonanza - Season 9 - Episode 31
Joe and Candy sell a herd to the Farrell Brothers in Arizona, but are paid a worthless bank draft. The widow of the man one of the brothers killed helps them get their money back, and the brothers' hatred for each other is their undoing.
#14 - Salute to Yesterday
Bonanza - Season 10 - Episode 3
When on a cattle drive on Ponderosa land, the Cartwrights and Candy find a dying cavalry officer on the trail. With his last breath, he asks them to go help his commanding officer, Captain Harris. Riding atop a slope, they see Captain Harris and his soldiers fighting off Mexican bandits who are trying to steal the four kegs of gold hidden in the Army ambulance. The Cartwrights and Candy cut right between the soldiers and the Mexican bandits, in a spectacular chase through a little valley and wind up at a high and rocky outcrop, taking cover and assisting the soldiers.
#15 - The Late Ben Cartwright
Bonanza - Season 9 - Episode 22
In order to ruin the plans of a corrupt politician, Ben allows everyone to think that an attempt on his life was successful.
#16 - Mark of Guilt
Bonanza - Season 10 - Episode 13
Hop Sing tells Hoss and Candy they can use the ancient Chinese art of fingerprinting to prove Joe is innocent of murder.
#17 - The Running Man
Bonanza - Season 10 - Episode 26
Joe and Candy travel to Butlerville and learn that one of Ben's closest friends is burning out new settlers, whom he regards as squatters. Candy's old ex-flame is married to Jess Parker, who always saw Candy as a rival in the past, but things have changed with both men and Jess' wife Barbara. Cal Butler is the real problem: he will stop at nothing to keep Parker from testifying alive.
#18 - Second Chance
Bonanza - Season 9 - Episode 1
Renegade Indians have been on the rampage attacking settlers and raising havoc in the West. Joe and Hoss have gone to warn the settlers when Joe is shot with an arrow. Hoss tries to remove the arrow, but the shaft breaks and it is imbedded in Joe's shoulder, leaving Joe gravely wounded. Hoss desperately searches for help and comes upon a wagon train with an odd assortment of people. There are two women, a thief, a dying doctor, and a coward on the wagon train.
#19 - The Awakening
The Virginian - Season 4 - Episode 5
A destitute former Minister, David Henderson (Glenn Corbett), who has had a crisis of faith, comes to Medicine Bow just as a dispute breaks out at a local mine over safety issues. Emmett Ryker entreaties Judge Garth to try and find a solution to the problem. When an accident occurs at the mine David's assists in a rescue attempt but hurts his leg. He is taken to Shiloh where Betsy Garth nurses him and they become romantically involved. David's actions gain him the respect of the miners, he becomes their leader, and he calls a strike over the working conditions. Despite an attempt to intimidate the miners by importing scab labour, with Judge Garth's help the owners and miners manage to reach an agreement. David rediscovers his calling and asks Betsy to marry him. They are married at Shiloh Ranch and head off to start a new life at a parish David has been assigned in Pennsylvania.
#20 - Trouble Town
Bonanza - Season 9 - Episode 24
The Ponderosa ranch hands are at Riverbend during a cattle drive. While there, Candy meets an old friend, Lilah Holden, working in a saloon. When the cattle drive is ready to move on, Candy resigns to stay and help Lilah. It is not long before Ben, Hoss, and Joe are involved.
#21 - The Passing of a King
Bonanza - Season 10 - Episode 5
The son of a rancher to whom the Cartwrights are selling a prize bull is trying to get his father ruled mentally incompetant, and will let no one stand in his way.
#22 - The Night of the Cadre
The Wild Wild West - Season 2 - Episode 26
Agent James West goes to see Warden Primwick, who releases the condemned murderer, Ralph Kleed, in his presence. But when Kleed blows a whistle, causing the warden to attack West, Jim must discover what's behind Kleed's diabolical plan and stop him before it's too late.
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#23 - Night of Reckoning
Bonanza - Season 9 - Episode 5
A sadistic outlaw named Dibbs along with his gang, take siege of the Ponderosa, holding Joe, Hoss, and Candy prisoners. Their foreman, Donny Buckler, has stashed $60,000 dollars and Dibbs will stop at nothing short of murder to get his hands on it.
#24 - Queen High
Bonanza - Season 10 - Episode 11
Joe and Candy win a stamping mill in a poker game, but the fact of them not knowing how to run it, is the least of their worries.
#26 - My Friend, My Enemy
Bonanza - Season 10 - Episode 16
Only the testimony of an Indian wanted for horse theft can clear Candy of murder.
#27 - The Bottle Fighter
Bonanza - Season 9 - Episode 29
Hoss is accused of stabbing a man to death, and his only hope of acquittal is a once great trial lawyer who is now a hopeless drunk.
#28 - The Real People of Muddy Creek
Bonanza - Season 10 - Episode 4
Ben is in charge of a vicious prisoner and gets virtually no help from the cowardly citizens of the town where he is holding him from the law.
#29 - The Crime of Johnny Mule
Bonanza - Season 9 - Episode 21
Hoss stands alone in refusing to convict Johnny Mule, a "slow" ranch hand who is accused of robbing and murdering his boss. So when Johnny Mule fearing he'll be lynched, regardless of the verdict escapes from jail during jury deliberations, it's Hoss who takes the heat.
#30 - Mrs. Wharton and the Lesser Breeds
Bonanza - Season 10 - Episode 17
Candy sets out to help a feisty and elderly British woman recover the jewels stolen from her in a stage holdup.
#31 - The Wild Goose Raid
The Rat Patrol - Season 1 - Episode 25
The Brits and the Americans are planning a high-level meeting in a desert town. On the day prior to the event, the Patrol sights a German motorcyclist and chases him--but he gets away. Assuming that the Nazis must now know of the conference, Troy tries to talk the commanders out of the meeting. But, instead, they assign him to be in charge of the security. Troy gets jumped, while in town, by a knife-wielding Arab. Sgt Roberts, one of the other "security" men, rescues Troy. Unknown to them, though, Roberts is a double agent and is planning to blow up the meeting--a fact that Troy learns.
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#32 - To Stop a War
Bonanza - Season 11 - Episode 6
Dan Logan, a former army scout and lawman who works for the Cartwrights, has his hands full with rustlers, a range war, and a one-time prostitute whose devotion is questionable.
#33 - Commitment at Angelus
Bonanza - Season 9 - Episode 25
When a horse steps on Candy's hand out on the trail, he and Joe go to Angelus to find a doctor. When they arrive, Joe sees his friend, Steve Regan, an Angelus miner. Steve tells Joe that the miners have gone on strike at his suggestion; the timber supports in the tunnels are rotting away. Joe offers him a day's wages to help him drive the wild horses, since Candy's hand is injured.
#34 - The Survivors
Bonanza - Season 10 - Episode 9
A white woman abducted years before by the Paiutes is reunited with her husband, who is less than pleased to learn she has given birth to an Indian baby.
#35 - A Ride in the Sun
Bonanza - Season 10 - Episode 30
A pair of con artists swindle Ben out of nearly $30,000 after convincing the Cartwright patriarch to enter into a deal to buy his cattle. The brother and sister shoot Ben, rob the Virginia City Bank and go on the run with Little Joe hot on their trail.
#36 - A Girl Named George
Bonanza - Season 9 - Episode 16
Trick photography is employed to help a killer beat a murder rap, to prove he was not there at the time of the murder he committed. However, the camera also proves to be his undermining.
#37 - Company of Forgotten Men
Bonanza - Season 10 - Episode 19
A retired Army sergeant, bitter that he never received his pension from the government, kidnaps one-time friend Candy and forces him to go along with a daring plan to blow up the U.S. mint in Carson City and hold the gold and silver for ransom.
#38 - Old Friends
Bonanza - Season 11 - Episode 12
Ben is sorry to learn that two of his oldest friends are on opposite sides of the law, after 27 years. Charlie Shepard once worked a mining claim with Ben, along with Jess Waddell, now a bounty hunter, and will stop at nothing to kill Charlie, regardless of what anyone tries to persuade him to do otherwise.
#39 - Speak No Evil
Bonanza - Season 10 - Episode 28
Coley Clayborn, who has always thought his mother abandoned him and his father, thinks she is only after the gold mine he inherited when she recently returned to Virginia City.
#40 - Check Rein
Bonanza - Season 9 - Episode 12
An injured rancher, who has enlisted the aid of the Cartwrights to buy back one of his horses after his farm is foreclosed, must avoid getting killed by his ruthless uncle, who will stop at nothing to gain full control of the ranch.
#41 - Different Pines, Same Wind
Bonanza - Season 10 - Episode 1
The 10th season opens as Joe helps a widowed mountain woman, a recluse who is suffering from an infection that has become serious, in a battle to save her land from an unscrupulous timber baron.
#42 - The Thirteenth Man
Bonanza - Season 9 - Episode 17
The ranchers are once again losing stock to rustlers and not everyone agrees with range detective Marcus Alley's preventive methods.
#43 - The Price of Salt
Bonanza - Season 9 - Episode 19
When a young woman inherits her late father's salt mine, a greedy rancher wants to buy all the salt for himself. Ben, standing for the smaller ranchers who cannot afford to pay the heiress' prices, bids against the wealthy rancher to get a fair price for all.
#44 - The Deserter
Bonanza - Season 10 - Episode 24
Candy comes upon a soldier who is running from charges of desertion, and with Joe's help they foil a plan to sell rapid-fire rifles to the Indians.
#45 - Child
Bonanza - Season 10 - Episode 2
While Hoss is in a remote town on business, he is arrested for murder and robbery. The town's richest man has just been killed, and the townspeople are less concerned with justice, rather the old man's money. They are convinced that if they threaten Hoss, he'll break down and tell them where he hid the fortune. A few of the town's top citizens, including the mayor, form a lynch mob, but only hang Hoss "part of the way". But when cowboy Child Barnett sees the lynch mob coming, he breaks Hoss out of jail, and the two men form a friendship on the run.
#46 - The Lady and the Mark
Bonanza - Season 11 - Episode 18
A new wealthy Ponderosa employee with a weakness for women becomes the target of con artists.
#47 - The Brothers Cannon
The High Chaparral - Season 3 - Episode 3
Buck angrily parts company with his brother John when a long-smoldering family feud is brought out into the open. Fed up with menial jobs on the Chaparral, Buck is ignored when he complains to his older brother John and so he leaves the ranch once and for all. When Blue also turns against him, John finally agrees to go after Buck who refuses to return.
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#48 - The Gold Mine
Bonanza - Season 11 - Episode 23
Two drifters come to the Ponderosa and they try to rob the Cartwrights but are driven away. Joe becomes close to the young Mexican, Ramon, who is with them. After they get into a little disagreement they throw Ramon out. The drifters then discover that Ramon has found gold. Ramon returns to the Ponderosa and is welcomed. The Cartwrights learn that Ramon's father, who had to take care of his large family, sold his son to the two men. The two drifters grab Ramon and force him to tell them where he found the gold. They are about to make their claim when the Cartwrights stop them and let Ramon claim the gold as his. Ramon then goes back to Mexico with his fortune.
#49 - The Trouble with Amy
Bonanza - Season 11 - Episode 17
Ben comes to the aid of Amy Wilder, an eccentric animal lover whose mental competency is questioned when a neighbor declares an interest in her land for mining. The neighbor asks the court for a hearing to have Amy declared senile so he can obtain her land, setting off Ben's race against time to track down Amy's relatives to defend her mental state.
#50 - The New Lion of Sonora (1)
The High Chaparral - Season 4 - Episode 14
Gilbert Roland guest stars as the surprise heir to the Montoya ranch in this special two-hour presentation. The sudden, peaceful passing of Don Sebastian Montoya brings his daughter Victoria, his son Manolito, John Cannon and Buck to the Montoya ranch to attend funeral services and to settle estate matters. All are amazed to learn the will leaves the vast Montoya holding to Don Sebastian's ne'er-do-well brother Don Domingo, a charming, irresponsible rascal currently living in Mexico City. Upon his return to the family home to claim his legacy, Domingo shocks the family by announcing he plans to sell the ranch and travel. A series of unexplained raids on his new-found cattle and property serves to uncover a little-known dimension of Don Domingo
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